


The Haunted Type

by signmysignature



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: F/M, Metafiction, Multi, Spiritualism, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 19:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12823998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/signmysignature/pseuds/signmysignature
Summary: Jennifer Vale is having quite the nightmare. She finds herself transplanted in corrupt and insidious Victorian London under the protection of DI Jedediah Shine. With only her TV knowledge, modern common sense, and a delightful wit, can she survive the dream that feels all too real.





	1. Wake Up

The smell woke me up first. The intolerable stench of manure hit my brain and forced my eyes open. All my dull senses began to return extremely heightened. My head wasn’t laying on my pillow, its’ laying on clumps of hay and cold stone. The nearby sounds are horses clip clopping and women yelling out objects and numbers, and the nearing sound of drunken laughter.

“Look ‘at I found, Mighty. Sweet li’ thing lost ‘er way.”

I turned my head to see two men swaying over my feet. I curled my legs and nudged up against a stone wall. Oh god, this is incredibly lucid. I could feel the grooves of the stones underneath my fingertips. 

“I think she’s half priced if shes half spent” said the younger of the two, holding up the tiniest brown coin. The other man whose arm was swung around the others shoulder grinned a little too wide and replied, “She could ‘ave a two for one deal.” Their faces bloomed red with laughter. 

Come on, Jen, wake up. Wake up. I pressed my eyes together and opened them, faced with the same sight of the men encroaching closer. My basic black nightgown barely went below my knee, not matter how much I pulled it over my legs.

This is why you don’t fall asleep with Netflix on. Listening to Ripper Street while asleep will alter your brain chemistry to have this shit happen. Alright, no amount of praying or wishing is going to help so… I looked right to see the alley squeeze close to a darkened right then looked left to see a street. As the younger man reached for me, I jumped up and ran.

No direction, just movement. My bare soles thunked against stones and puddles and squished things unknown. I could hear the men yell behind me, but not follow. Through the blur I could see makeshift stands with fruit and furs and bobbles and brick walls patch worked with posters. I bobbed under clotheslines and spilled some woman’s basket of apples, who picked them and said in the strongest Cockney accent something about bruising. Not sure how long I want to run for, till I ran out of the landscape into another dream, something like Willy Wonka or Chocolat or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I must be hungry. My chest hurt ever time I breathed. A coach ran in front of me, I turned to miss getting hit.

Full speed, I ran into the back of a black suited man. I got thrown back and cracked my head on the road. 

Blackness swallowed me. The world burned at the edges till I felt warm with my blanket around me. I pulled it closer and nuzzled my head into my pillow which felt so hard all of a sudden. My eyes fluttered once then opened to thick iron bars surrounding me. My pillow was in fact a pillow case stuffed with cotton that reeked of sick. 

“Shes awake.”


	2. K Division

I sat up to see the black suited man twiddling a ring of silver keys around his thumb behind the gate. He was a squat man with no pleasantness about him, rather a strict stare and a soft chin with a top lip hidden by a fair-haired moustache. I looked down to see I had been given a blanket, neither completely soft nor scratchy that was mustard yellow and stitched in simple flowers. I missed my own, black and white thick stripped that I wore like a cape in Maine’s dead winters. Stop it. Get a hold of yourself. This dream is merely detailed, very detailed. I touched the back of my head and felt the stickiness of blood. Not much, but I felt the rise of panic in my chest, thinking about the non existence of germ theory. The man did not move his gaze and said again, “The girl is awake.”

From the right corridor approached, a young wiry man, whose face struck so familiar yet could not be placed. “Has she spoken?” He asked, in a Irish lilt. The voice conjured his name. It was Albert...Albert F something. I was rewatching the beginning of Season 2 when I fell asleep to prepare for Season 5, so my memory was scratchy. I knew he worked for Reid, but his loyalty was owned by Jedediah Shine. He seemed thinner, looking at his profile through the bars. The man in black did a single shake of his head.

“Open it.”

The man obliged and let Albert in. In view, he was wearing a smart suit with a hat tucked under his arm. His smile was framed to be inviting, but his eyes did not smile. “Miss, we need to inquire of your identity.”

My identity was Jennifer Vale, a 24 year-old library assistant in some eye sore Maine town. But would that work? If I was sincere in my answers, would it be held in suspension of disbelief or would the bawdy American be sent to the closest asylum. I’m not willing to stake my life on those chances. What was I say? My knowledge of the time period was 87% from the show itself and the rest was non-fiction books that I ordered and checked out first. 

“Stitched in her dress is Daphne,” the jailer said, looking to Albert. If I wasn’t so distracted by the lie, I would have let it sink it that he read my dress tag which used to read Daphne Designs, but the last part had rubbed off after three years. 

“Daphne, where do you reside?”

I shook my head and attempted my Victorian accent, “I don’t remember.”

It wasn’t bad…not great, but I don’t sound like most of the women in the streets. Its forced posh at best.

“Do you know your whole name, your family? Any of the sort?”

I shook my head and wrapped the blanket further. Albert shook his head and looked to the man. “He’ll want to have a chat with her.”

The man’s eyebrows dipped together. “With the funeral, I do not think the Detective Inspector will want to bother with this black spot.”

Wow. Okay. Apparently people here have the terrible habit talking about a person when they are still in the room. 

“Normally, I would agree, but I do not think she is a toffer. She may be of some importance and that will only aid the reputation of ‘K’ Division, don’t you agree Barton?” 

Barton could only nod. Albert extended his arm to me and said warmly, “Come, you may wait in Detective Inspector Shine’s office.” 

I slowly stood, hesitant of the progression of this dream. I walked between Barton and Albert up a set of simple steps to the first floor. The walk to his office was short, a hall of black and white tile that led to the main entrance of the police station. It was buzzing with activity. Men, dressed as Barton, darted to and from hallways and behind desks with paperwork in hand or batons. The cell across from the main desk housed blotted drunks who sunk to the floor. Albert led me to a wooden door with a fogged window where he motioned me in. I turned to look over my shoulder to see the cell once more and noticed blood pouring from their noses.

I shuffled in my blanket over to a burnt red velvet couch below the window and sat up straight, taking in the room. It certainly was not Reid’s office that I could vaguely remember. Shine’s office was organized with few personality touches such as worn boxing gloves hanging from the coat rack, a can of hair pomade next to fingerprinting ink, and a single black chess piece on the corner of his desk, the Queen. 

“DI Shine should be—“Albert was interrupted by the door being kicked open. In strolled, the enigmatic figure himself, Jedediah Shine.


	3. Memory is a Fickle Thing

“Holy fuck” I whispered it low, but it was inescapable on my lips. He stood grounded with broad shoulders, a towering presence in his array of brilliant gold and red with a soft gray plaid coat. I couldn’t look away from his face. At the moment, his face was twisted in anger. His lip was curled, parallel to his moustache. The scar below his left eye was more pronounced with this expression. My jaw dropped a little. Alright, dream, no you're working with me.

“Reid and that sergeant seek a forked justice that only violence could be matched with. I shall gift it tenfold.” Shine’s eyes were wild, not looking at the room and not speaking to anyone in particular. Suddenly, leaning on his desk he realized he was not alone. His eyes calmed and looked to me then Albert. “You bring a guest to my quarters? With no writ nor warning?”

Albert’s face began to burn. “She was waiting in the cells. I believed her separate from the lot”

Shine looked to my blanket. “Not her lot indeed.”

Albert tried to stand taller then motioned to me. “I was only able to get her first name, Daphne. Barton was accosted by her, lurched her back which cause her to crack her head. Apparent memory loss.” He didn’t believe me. I could hear it in his voice.

“Memory is a fickle thing,” Shine said it through his teeth. He shoved his hands into his coat pockets and asked, “What do you make of her, Flight?”

“It’s rained for four days straight till this morning yet her clothes are dry.”  
“Meaning streets are new to her.”  
“Aye. Her dress is odd, but not the cut of an asylum or jailhouse. Crudely cut with no sleeves or skirt.”

I could see Shine’s fingers twiddling with something in his pocket. He snapped in front of me “Stand.” 

Feet aching and cut, I stood with knees shaking. The nightgown was a necessity purchase from Goodwill. Trust me, I would much rather be dolled up in a corset and rich green tulles and ribbons.

“Give us a hand.”

I poked out my arm and offered my palm. This felt like some surreal physical like it would end with both telling me I was fit for fight. It also could turn sideways. This wistful dream could turn to bloody hopeless nightmare, spending a felt eternity in a cell. Shine rubbed his rough fingers across my hands, feeling around my palm and the mounds below my fingers then turned my hand over. “What have we here, Constable.” 

I looked down and saw my nails painted in wine red. Oh this is unexpected…did the Victorians have nail polish? Probably no, so what would sound logical? 

“Its French.” I muttered, half convinced that the statement would work. Albert rubbed it with thumb and seemed impressed. Shine managed a smile then dropped my hand. “She speaks.”

My cheeks ran flush and I tucked my hand back into the comfort of the fabric. 

“Remove the blanket.”

I casted my eyes down quickly. The realization was dawning on me that this scrawny nightgown was all I was wearing, no bloomers or bra. 

“Please.” 

His please was practically doused in honey. I shuffled it off onto the couch and crossed my arms across my chest. He placed his hands on both my shoulders, my forehead at level with his jaw. 

“She certainly not from the rookery or dosshouse. No ruddy skin, muck, nothing of the like, yet she is not a lady as well. Why would that be?”

Albert appeared at his side and looked at my being, almost through me.

“Sun kissed. Upon her shoulder, meaning laboring outside.”

My childhood was spent exploring woods and creek and cove. Some days I was forced to lay in bed, stiff as a board with my skin sun burned head to toe. 

Shine gave a nod and turned away to speak to Albert. 

He took Albert by the back of the head, hand gripped in his hair and said, “You are making far stride, my boy. All good you do in my house, shall be returned to you. Yes?”

Albert nodded, chest puffed and eyes obedient. 

“Make me proud, eh? Steady on with your ear to the wall. Don't make Abberline wait another moment”

“Understood, sir.” Albert turned on his heel and left, closing the door behind him.

Shine returned to fidgeting with the item in his pocket. “Now Daphne, what am I to make of you?”

A chill ran through me. A touch of fear remembering the capability of Shine’s strength. My lip quivered as I spoke. “I do not know, sir. My memory is…threadbare. I—“ 

Fuck, I need to get ahold of their language. 

“I feel a great weight upon my shoulders, a unthinkable knowledge that contains not a name or a history.” I paused, realizing my nails were digging so hard into the cushion I has punctured it.

“You may be honest, Miss. Whatever trouble or danger threatens you—“

“I feel it is not a sort of trouble you may contend with…sir.” 

“Any fiend seeks no match with me.” He pulled out a pocket watch and clicked it open. “Let us discuss further in a better state. Some proper wear and food may free whatever ails you.”


End file.
